Posted by Quixie at 12:37 PM
Read our previous post
The following is a comment I tried to post on Ben Witherington's blog. I was responding to a fellow commenter who had brought up the points that I touch on.Witherington declined to publish it, saying it was just a diatribe (an abusive denunciation). Here it is. I 'll let the reader be the judge of how abusive I was. I publish it here now in the interest of full disclosure and to show just how insular these apologist types really are. Shame on him for calling me abusive.
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This comment goes out to derek (speaker for the dead)in particular, but if you think that his "assesment" is "fair", then this is for you as well.
You are correct in insisting that Paul's intent was probably not to tell the whole story in his epistles. They are letters to specific communities dealing with specific organizational and doctrinal issues, and as such, we should not expect that he "pass on the whole story" in every letter. This however has no bearing on this argument, for the simple reason that no one (not Doherty, not Carrier, not Wells, not Baur, not Bultmann, not Allegard, not Price, nor anyone else.) has made the argument that Paul must do this in order to support J's historicity. What you are doing, D, here is setting up what is known in the study of rhetoric as a "straw man". (For another germane example of a strawman, read the last paragraph of this comment). But in fact, this is not the kind of corroboration that is needed.
The total pauline silence regarding J's biographical information (or, more importanly-and I see you agree with me on this already-his teaching!) is so important here because, had Paul been familiar with the story of J's life and teachings as outlined in the gospels, he would have reflected some modicum of knowledge of this outline. But, in fact, in some cases, a gospel detail is contradicted by what Paul writes.
An example by way of a serious question:
If, as Rom 1:4, Phil 2:6-11, Acts 2:36, and Acts 3:26 preserve, Christians once (very early on) believed that J had become Messiah as of his resurrection, then all passages that have him claiming messiahship must be judged spurious. One is of course free to harmonize these, but I've yet to see a convincing harmonization on this, one that does not seem contrived, ad hoc, or blatantly apologetic. Such harmonization seems like an escape-hatch approach that solves the problem by convincing itself that no problem exists.
o_Ó
Additionally, had Paul known the gospel story and accepted it as accurate, he would have had no need to expound on some of the things that he so floridly expounds on in his letters, things that are attested to in the gospel story and which therefore should have been presumably settled by J himself.
An example of this, by way of a serious question (and again, there are several):
Why would Paul have needed to update J's ruling on marriage and divorce? (an "update", incidentally, which is really a conceding to the "hardness of heart" that J explicitly attributes to an "old school" of thought-this "update" by Paul is really a regression, a repealment)
"J said it, I believe it!" doesn't seem to be the viewpoint of Christians who you and Dr.W here seem to think already knew the story and therefore needed no refresher from Paul. You can harmonize these if you want, but I've yet to see a compelling harmonization (or even a dispassionate one).
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From this point on I can't quote my comment verbatim because I didn't save the final last couple of paragraphs (I didn't anticipate that W wouldn't publish it—this surprised and disappoint me . . .
So the rest is paraphrased as best as I can remember:
I made some comments about the nature of study-about how study is honest inquiry and not sycophantic acceptance of doctrinal teachings (there will be a quiz on Wednesday and all that jazz). The latter is "training", not "study." One must honestly explore where the trail of evidence leads. Otherwise, though it may be theology, it most certainly does NOT fall under the discipline of "history."
I understand why so many orthodox believers are so alarmed by the implications of the mythicist hypotheses, and I realize that suspending belief is just as difficult as suspending disbelief, and that it sounds abrasive and caustic to the pious, and that it is highly unlikely that this volley will change anyone's mind on these matters.
But, though it might seem like it to someone who is sensitive and defensive in their faith, the mythicist position is not an attack of any kind, but instead it is a realization that the story is even weirder than we had imagined.
Like many of the commenters on W's blog, I find things like Acharya S, and Frieke-Gandy's book, Dan Brown's outright fiction, and the truly horrible Zeitgeist film to be utter crap. But, I honestly feel that the lumping of Doherty (and other more legitimate scholars like Price and Carrier) into the same sloppy-research camp is just misinformed at best and disingenuous and malicious at worst. All it would take on the part of anyone interested in this is to compare Zeitgeist's documented sources with Doherty's bibliography.
In the last paragraph I made reference to a chatter named Pearse who was trying to build a strawman out of an obscure work of Tertullian's.
I assure you it never veered from courtesy (albeit disagreeing) in my comment, so any decision to not publish it was based on something other than belligerence or vulgarity or ad hominems.
Witherington either finds my comment dangerous (which is just silly) and thinks it is worth censoring OR he thinks I am in error about something (in which case, I am not above correction, sir) OR otherwise merely disagreeing is enough to block someone's honest response to an open forum.
Is this what Jesus would do?
I'll not mention him again . . . but the above is a perfect final example of why I think Ben Witherington III is an irrelevant scholar. He's not just transparently apologetic, he is also dishonest.
peace
Ó
Hi Quixie,
ReplyDeleteI myself do not know why Dr. Witherington did not post this. But I will respond to it here. First:
I do understand what you're saying. My comment was hastily thrown together, and I did know before that Dr Witherington doesn't like long posts. To be honest, I was surprised that he posted mine. :)
You are correct; Doherty does not insist that we MUST see the whole stroy there to agree he believed in a HJ. I was, more or less, generalizing the basic idea. That was not the best way to put it, you are right. However, what he does say is we must see some indication that Paul knew something, which he also claims we do not. This is false.
As I said, if we approach Paul's letters (Rom, 1&2 Cor, Gal, Phi, Philemon, and 1 Thess, even though I think a convincing case can be made for both Eph, and Col being Pauline) without a bias (either way), we see him talking about someone he believed to be a man, a Jew more specifically from David's house, (Gal 3:16, Gal 4:4, Rom 1:3, Rom 9:5), named Jesus (do I need to cite verses for this?), who he believed was the Messiah, (again?), who had a brother(s) (Gal 1:20, 1 Cor 9:5), who was betrayed on a specific night (1 Cor 11:23), who was crucified (1 Cor 1:23, 1 Cor 2:8, Phil 2:8), at the hand of Jews (1 Thess 2:14-15) who died for the believers sin, was buried, and three days later rose from the dead (1 Cor 15:4), and that he will return from the place he ascended to, in order to retrieve those who are his, (1 Thess 4:15-17, 1 Thess 5:12-3).
Even more that his church involved men in Jerusalem called apostles named Cephas, James (his brother), and John. These he calls Pillars. (Gal 1:11-2:10)
Again that his life was characterized by meekness, gentleness, and humble service (2 Cor 10:1, Phil 2:5-7). And that his life was to emulated as Paul emulated it (1 Cor 11;1)
Sorry it's so long. :)
Second, I do not see in my comment where I agree with you on the absence of his teaching. On the contrary:
1 Cor 11:23-26 shows a huge parallel with Luke 22:17-20 of the last supper.
1 Cor 7:10-11 shows knowledge of Jesus teaching on marriage. Now, you say Paul updates Jesus teaching. I do not see this, unless you mean when he says, "If she does separate, let her remain separate" But this is not an update, Paul knows that some will separate even though he says they shouldn't. And thus he says, "If this happens, stay separate!" Also note how carefully Paul is to distinguish b/w his teaching and Jesus'. You also say,
"he would have had no need to expound on some of the things that he so floridly expounds on in his letters, things that are attested to in the gospel story and which therefore should have been presumably settled by J himself."
If you have ever been in a church and man have I been in few churches in my life, you know how people disagree on the interpretation on many, many, many, many.....many of the things that Jesus said and did. It was no different at this time. perhaps Paul is reminding them, perhaps this is the first time they have heard this particular aspect of Jesus' teaching. It is worth noting, that Paul grounds his belief on marriage the same way Jesus did in the Gospels. (1 Cor 6:12-20)
Third, now, as we are trying to evaluate history here, we must place Paul's, and the other NT epistles into historical context. Now, no more than 25 years after Paul’s writing, we see the Gospels appear. Generally, I think we can agree that they were all written before the close of the 1st century with Mark on top b/w CE 65-80. Then Matt, Luke and John in between 75-95. So, we have four documents, all written within 25-30 years of Paul documents, that detail an man named Jesus who yada yada yada yada. Not to mention Q, Matt material, Luke's material, John's material and many other sources various scholars believe may or may not have played a part in the gospel developments. We also have Acts, the Didache, 1 Clement, and the abundant Christian record from the 2nd century on.
Now, if there were even the barest hint of a group contesting with the earliest church we are made aware of in these sources, a group believing in either an inhuman or ancient past savior, we might have to re-evaluate our understanding of the epistles. Yet, here is where we find the REAL silence. There is no indication for this. Moreover, when we place the epistles of the NT alongside the Gospels, many parallels can be uncovered.
We do not see the epistles through "Gospel colored glasses". We do historical work when we compare and contrast the Gospels with the epistles, and in doing so, find many corroborative details (as I showed above) and a few apparent contradictions. We do this to try and uncover the beliefs of these ancient people called Christians.
Lastly, I do want to clear a few things up. I realize now that my post may have sounded like a response to your blog. I wanted you to know, when I said,
"In any event, what kind of responsible historical inquiry asks people to ignore huge pieces of evidence like the Gospels? Not one interested in truth."
that I was not responding to a point you made in your post. I did not even look at your original post until a friend told me of this one. I was merely stating something I have heard time and time again while addressing this issue. I would not do something so cowardly as to respond to another mans blog in a "safe Christian" one :)
And lastly for real, I again do not know why Dr Witherington did not post this. I would have welcomed responding to it over there. I do not like believing that Dr. Witherington did it to "avoid" your comments. I hope not. In any event, I want to apologize for any misunderstandings. I'm grateful that you went through and posted this anyways. As I said, I am a student. And as one who calls myself a follower of Christ Jesus, I must be prepared to re-evaluate my beliefs and faith when others present beliefs and evidence I'm not familiar with.
As far as the Christ-Myth goes, if I picked one I perceived to be the strongest, I would pick Well's theory. Yet, and correct me if I'm wrong, I believe he has "recanted" because of Q. Also, I will look into your comment on Jesus being believed to only be messiah after His raising.
I simply want you to know that there are believers out there who do their best, even if much of what I wrote above is found to be crap, who try to understand opposing viewpoints and don't just "cheerlead" our "intellectual champions"
Thanks for the opportunity to dialogue Quixie!
Much love in Jesus,
Speaker (Derek)
I think the issue with Witherington is that he is not as crude a teacher as your average pastor. He knows there are scholarly issues and won't deny them. Nonetheless, to my knowledge of his writing, he usually will resolve questions on the side of the orthodox position, even when the evidence is weak.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that is more frustrating because he is not a fundamentalist and not totally closed to the idea that the Bible is not some inerrent book dictated by God. It's easy to dimiss unreasonable people, but when reasonable people take positions you find unreasonable, you scratch your head.
The extent of Paul's knowledge of the Jesus story and his teachings is an interesting one.
While it is true that he says little explicitly about Jesus, some of Paul's teachings sound a lot like what Jesus says. For example, the teaching about clean vs. unclean and sin coming from the inside of a person is in the teaching of both.
Still, that there is even a legitimate question in this regard is foreign to your average Christian. People are taught at church that there was one set of beliefs and they were passed from Jesus to the apostles, who wrote the gospels, and everything was OK except for the heretics.
I talked to someone at my church yesterday about the call of the first apostles, because the pastor gave a sermon the other week about the miracle story in Luke where Jesus told them to find the fish and they made a big catch and immediately left their boats to follow him.
I asked someone to read the account of those apostles decision to follow Jesus in Matthew, Mark and John. Matt copies Mk's story, which is similar but has key details different. John's story is completely different. My friend could only think that they were different angles of the same story, despite the fact that the facts are completely different.
Hi Derek,
ReplyDeleteI didn't expect that anyone would actually read this post, much less respond to it.
W said that the reason for rejecting my comment was that it was a "long diatribe." This is why I posted it here, so that an impartial reader can determine for himself whether it was abusive or not.
As I think you agree that it is clearly not abusive, and as it is not really any longer than your own comment (which inspired mine), and as the only significant difference between these two is that yours not only agrees with his views, but addresses him from a subordinate attitude (which I don't object to-I'm just here pointing out the contrast), I can easily enough do the math.
That said:
Thank you for taking the time to read this and respond. I'm glad that your friend refered you to it, as it was addressed to you in the first place. I'll try to address the issues you brought up, point by point, as succinctly as possible while still getting my points across.
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First . . . . while you are entitled to believe that Ephesians and Colossians are genuine Pauline articles, you are going against the vast consensus of current scholarship—not that consesus settles anything, I know—so such an assertion DOES reflect a theological bias.
okay . . . . point by point now . . .
Re: Jesus' "humanity" in Paul:
Gal 3:16
. . . includes Jesus under the general heading of "descendant of Abraham" (not of David, btw). But his point here (to my eyes) is to stress Jesus' "uniqueness"-his "singularity" in relation to a "fulfillment" of the Law, citing Genesis 13:15 and 24:7.
Although Paul seems to be making a point about the grammar of Genesis, he knew his Hebrew, and he knew that seed (zehrah) in Genesis was a collective noun (e.g. just as our word for seed is usually a collective noun—what kind of farmer would sow one single seed?). Thus Paul is not making a grammatical argument here, but an interpretive argument. Thus the language about seed and seeds (easy to obfuscate by translating it as "descendant/descendants" —as in most English translations) is Paul's shorthand for a fuller midrashic argument.
In short, Gal 3:16 is not a reference to Jesus' life.
Gal 4:4
I already commented on this in my original post.
(I said: 'Is he (W) seriously suggesting that "born of woman" is a biographical reference? With all due respect, this is a laughable notion.')
Nuff said. (see below)
Romans 1:3
Same kind of thing as above.
Such a brief passing allusion is not biographical information. What woman? — When? —Where?—etc . . . . these would be biographical information.
But I'm glad you brought this specific verse up, though, because of the reference to Davidic lineage. As we all know, the story goes that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in order to fulfill a prophecy that the "Messiah" would come from the city of David. Matthew and Luke agree on this (however, it seems to be the only thing that they seem to agree on regarding J's birth).
However the earliest gospel (Mark's) seems to suppose that Jesus was from Nazareth and makes no mention of Bethlehem as the origin of Jesus. His lack of knowledge of this is telling.
Moreover, in Mark 12:35–3, the text has no other meaning than to prove that the Messiah, contrary to the expectations of many, is not supposed to be a descendant of King David. There was a time when Christians knew quite well that Jesus was "known" to be a native of the Galilee, not of Davidic descent, and they made the best of this. They knew that some Jews insisted that the Messiah had to be a descendant of David, but they simply denied that premise.
If Matthew and Luke placed the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, it was because they mistakenly thought that prophecy demanded it (Micah 5:2). Mark undermines both assumptions, though.
Add to this, John 7:28 and 7:40–42.
The gist is that John knows about the tradition of the Messiah coming from Bethlehem and from Davidic lineage, but he rejects it. In this chapter, Jesus admits that the crowd knows from whence he came, and no one in the crowd or among his supporters is depicted as believing that he does come from Bethlehem. The point in this chapter, I'd like to clarify, is not whether Jesus came from Bethlehem. The point here is that, assuming that Jesus did not . . . .
Does this disqualify him as Messiah?
Some say yes—some say no.
The author of John holds to the Markan or pre-Markan acceptance of a Galilean origin.
So . . . while Romans 1:3 does mention a Davidic lineage for his Messianic portrait of Jesus and not just an Abrahamic one, this really has no bearing on J's actual (or legendary—our focus) biography.
Romans 9:5
This speaks of the flesh and blood of the patriarchs as the source of the Messiah. But, as it is obviously part of a theological rumination (note the "amen" at the end of the passage), and as it contains no biographical information (what - where - when - how - why), it really is not useful to your argument.
Gal 1:20
First of all, only one such "brother" is refered to here: Yacob.
Secondly, whereas the reference to J's brothers and sisters in Mark is undeniably a reference to blood relatives, it is not so undeniable in this particular case, where the description of Yacob as "brother" is irrelevant to the surrounding narrative and is merely a passing comment about Paul's apostolic credentials.
1 Cor 9:5
This could mean blood relatives or "brethren." (there's a LONG controversy regarding this, as you know). As such, it is the closest you have come so far to providing just the tiniest allusion to biographical information, but if it does (if) refer to biographical data, it is tenuous data at best (c.f. the who - where- when, etc).
Still, I'll score you one minor point in your favor here.
Lets continue, though.
1 Cor 11:23
Once more, I'm glad you brought this up.
I am in the process of writing a book review in which this issue comes up, so it's relatively fresh in my mind.
I don't know if you are aware of this, but the Greek word that has traditionally been translated as "betrayed" does not necessarily mean that at all. One need not look further than this very verse to illustrate my point:
"For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered (paradido¯mi) unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed (paradido¯mi) took bread . . . . etc "
See what I mean?
In fact . . . the word "betrayed" is not explicitly used until Luke's narrative of Judas' involvement.
Derek wrote:
"Even more that his church involved men in Jerusalem called apostles named Cephas, James (his brother), and John. These he calls Pillars. (Gal 1:11-2:10)"
This speaks for the historicity of these three men, not of Jesus.
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If you remember my original post, I do accept that the only details which Paul does mention regarding Jesus' biography revolve around his death and subsequent "events," so I'll not comment on the rest of your citations regarding the "passion" in Paul, as I do not deny these allusions are there.
These reflect Paul's theological ruminations and obsession with J's death as the central focus in Paul's salvation scheme.
So . . . . of the points you brought up above . . . . you are batting approximately 15%.
(That's a far cry from your saying of my claims of Pauline silence regarding J's biography, "This is false." above)
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In my parenthetic statement regarding J's Teaching, I didn't mean that you agreed with me that there was an absense, I meant that his teaching is what mattered. I took your agreement in the comment to be your saying, "His point was we are not saved by Jesus walking on water or raising the dead, but by HIS resurrection from the dead."
Looking at your comment again, I realize that I phrased that all wrong, as the resurrection can't really be considered part of Jesus' teaching.
Sorry about that.
I'm taking my time writing this response because I don't want to make the same sort of mistakes I made on W's post regarding accuracy in my citations and in misunderstandings like this one.
Derek wrote:
"1 Cor 11:23-26 shows a huge parallel with Luke 22:17-20 of the last supper.
"
Why not a huge parallel with Mark or Matthew, though?
In other words, I'm implying that Luke, having seen 1 Corinthians somewhere (incidentally, the only Pauline epistle directly quoted by any early patristic writer—e.g Clement and Ignatius), could have been attempting to "correct" Mark's story, to make it more inline with Paul's letter. (obviously . . . i don't think the author of Luke was a disciple of Paul, nor do I think the author of Luke is the same person as the author of Acts—but that will have to await its own post :)
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Regarding Paul's teaching on divorce:
I am familiar with the line of reasoning you offer here, but it always has seemed like special pleading to me.
A couple of points:
Yes, Paul specifically says that it is his own teaching and not Jesus', but that raises the question: If Jesus in fact did make a declaration regarding this, why does Paul feel the need to "correct" or update this teaching?
Furthermore, I know how much disagreement there is today regarding many of J's teachings.
But . . .
(you said)
"perhaps Paul is reminding them, perhaps this is the first time they have heard this particular aspect of Jesus' teaching. ", in which case you are essentially saying that his listeners did not know the gospel story. Otherwise, they surely would have corrected him.
No?
1Cor 6 is irrelevant to my argument regarding the discrepancy between Paul's teaching on divorce and Jesus'.
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Derek wrote:
"Now, if there were even the barest hint of a group contesting with the earliest church we are made aware of in these sources, a group believing in either an inhuman or ancient past savior, we might have to re-evaluate our understanding of the epistles. Yet, here is where we find the REAL silence."
Very well . . . lets make a short list:
1- Simon Magus (via Irenaeus) had appeared as Jesus, but in appearance only; as Jesus he had not really been a man, and "had appeared to suffer even though he had not really suffered."
2- Basilides (via Irenaeus)
"And into the nations belonging to them it (intellect) appeared on earth as a man, and he performed deeds of power. Hence he did not suffer. Rather a certain Simon of Cyrene was forced to bear his cross for him, and it was he who was ignorantly and erroneously crucified, being transformed by the other, so he was taken for Jesus; while Jesus, for his part, assumed the form of Simon and stood by, laughing at them."
3- Marcion believed that Christ was not flesh and blood. (Interestingly, like Paul, he did hold the cross and Christ crucified as a central theme of his theology, though).
4- Saturninus (via Eusebius and via Hippolytus) believed that Christ was indeed the redeemer. Yet he, like other Gnostics, "maintained that Christ was not a material being and only appeared to be a man."
*** Incidentally, all of the above claimed Paul as their main influence. In fact, Tertullian called Paul the "heretics' apostle."
Coincidence?
But we're not quite done yet . . . .
5- Epiphanus attests that there was a known tradition that Jesus was born around 100 BCE and was crucified under Alexander Jannaeus.
6- The Talmud also attests to this same tradition.
7- The Toledoth Yeshu also preserves this tradition.
Not to mention that the canonical Johannine epistles explicitly denounce opponents who espouse docetic beliefs.
I'll stop there, but I hope these will suffice to at least show that there WAS such "contesting" J's full "humanity."
Granted, this school of thought survives only in fragments cited by the heresy-hunters, but it is undeniable that they existed.
Did you mean it when you said that "we might have to re-evaluate our understanding of the epistles," if we had these "barest hints"?
;)
As far your concern that you may have offended me with your initial comment. It's all good, bro. No apologies are necessary.
Not only did you not offend me, but you have proven that your heart and mind are in the right place by merely taking the time to eloquently and calmly respond to my posts. I sincerely appreciate that and I also admire your honesty, which is the thing I value in people more than anything else.
Regarding Wells:
Yes, he did backslide a bit, but it is important to note that his change of mind was more an acceptance that Jesus "could have" been a real person, but that we can know almost nothing at all about him (something that Bultmann had already posited in the 40s). This is a far cry from accepting the gospel portrayal of Jesus, though.
I like Wells' work, but the best work in this field (to my eyes) is by Robert M. Price. And as I said in my original post, I am looking forward to Richard Carrier's book on the subject. Based on the shorter pieces and various lectures and interviews of his that I have read, I predict that he is going to blow the roof off of this house of cards.
I accept and appreciate your last short paragraph. I have never doubted that there are genuinely honest seekers among believers. In fact, I quite enjoy interacting with them.
However, (and regretfully) I do not consider Dr W to be in this class. I honestly wish he was.
BTW . . . I don't mind that your comment is so long, as this reply is longer still! . . . (laughs)
Before I go, I'd like to address a point in your longish post on W's blog that I hadn't taken up before:
Derek wrote:
"Only when we assume, as Doherty does, that there was a Christ-Myth cult (one there is no historical evidence for) can we filter through it things like Rom 1:3 and Gal 4:4 and say Paul didn't mean a human man. The point is, the reader not looking through these epistles with a heavy bias (in either direction) might come away from Paul's letters believing Paul cared little for Jesus' life. But they will NOT, find some kind of ethereal savior god who Paul believed lived and died in the spirit world. This is Jesus mythers importing ideas from a "cult" that we don't even have any evidence existing outside of their own minds."
To this I will answer that you don't see evidence for the existence of such a cult because you refuse to accept that the Pauline corpus itself IS the main piece of evidence.
On a final note . . . . I don't necessarily subscribe fully to the mythicist hypothesis. But like any hypothesis, it should be tested thoroughly instead of dismissed out of hand as folly (or worse as an attack, like W and others do) without even trying to understand where these people are coming from. What I have come to realize after studying these matters is that this is as valid a hypothesis as any other in the field of study. It makes me sad when I see people responding to W's badly-argued post with things like:
"As ever you put things so clearly and succinctly. Thank You! [...] I'll definitely be saving the text and keeping it handy for when it's needed."
Fifty bucks says that that commenter will never explore the issues raised by the hypothesis (why should they—that would require effort and an open mind). They will merely copy and paste the good doctors crappy apologetics.
That's just a case of the blind leading the blind, if you ask me.
The fact is that we are ALL students. Those who deem themselves "graduated" are fooling (possibly even willfully deluding) themselves. Intellectual vanity is a freaky thing.
Anyway . . .
peace be with you always
respectfully;
Ó
Hi paulf;
ReplyDeleteThanks for adding your own insight and sharing your own experiences here.
Obviously, I share your frustration with the "obstinately pious".
:)
Ó
Once again, hi Quixie!
ReplyDeleteI will really try to keep this short since it’s late and I'm tired! Thanks for responding, I'm afraid after this I will be really busy with school and such, so I'll have to wait for the future to "pick your brain" again. Please remember I'm a layfool, so go easy on me. :)
Now to it:
"First . . . . While you are entitled to believe that Ephesians and Colossians are genuine Pauline articles, you are going against the vast consensus of current scholarship—not that consensus settles anything, I know—so such an assertion DOES reflect a theological bias."
Not unlike the vast consensus on Jesus' existence as a man in history, yes? :) But you're right. i did say a case could be constructed, but presently I'm happy viewing them as both being from a disciple of Paul.
Gal 3:16
Yes it is, for in 3:19 he again makes reference to the descendant who was promised and would arrive. This has to be about Jesus. Perhaps not the kind of bio that we would most like to have. Being the 21st century, immediate data transfer people we are, yet it does tell us Paul believed the Messiah (Jesus) was a man. Considering Paul's thought was fundamentally Jewish, as many recent scholarly studies have shown, this means he believes Jesus to have lived on earth. Plus in the subsequent verses, Paul lays out history, in brief, up to the Messiah. Abraham, the Law, and then the Messiah. So. notwithstanding, this verse does tell us Jesus was a descendant of Abraham.
Gal 4:4
Again, maybe not the kind of bio info that we like. But still enough to show Paul believed Jesus to be a HUMAN Jewish man (Born under the law). We cannot say why Paul did not choose to say Mary's name, but that is irrelevant. (More on background info later)
Romans 1:3
This IS a piece of bio info. Jesus is a descendant of David as Paul is a kinsman to the Jews. (Rom 9:5)
"As we all know, the story goes that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in order to fulfill a prophecy that the "Messiah" would come from the city of David. Matthew and Luke agree on this (however, it seems to be the only thing that they seem to agree on regarding J's birth)."
Just because two accounts give two sets of info, it's not right to play them against each other out-of-hand and then throw our hands up and say “they’re hopelessly contradictory!” Harmonization is a cornerstone of historical investigation, and Craig Blomberg has done a fantastic job of that for these particular problems.
"However the earliest gospel (Mark's) seems to suppose that Jesus was from Nazareth and makes no mention of Bethlehem as the origin of Jesus. His lack of knowledge of this is telling."
For a modern example, just because one bio of George Washington mentions one thing, while another chooses to omit it means nothing.
"Moreover, in Mark 12:35–3, the text has no other meaning than to prove that the Messiah, contrary to the expectations of many, is not supposed to be a descendant of King David. There was a time when Christians knew quite well that Jesus was "known" to be a native of the Galilee, not of Davidic descent, and they made the best of this. They knew that some Jews insisted that the Messiah had to be a descendant of David, but they simply denied that premise."
I know this is from Price, but he seems to be one of the only ones I can find that holds this view. No more than a few chapters earlier (Mark 10:46-52) do we have Jesus being followed by a man screaming "Son of David!" Does Mark have Jesus turn and correct the man about his non-Davidic lineage? No. Why would Mark include both these if he believed Jesus not to be the Christ whom all Israel knew would come from David's line? Moreover, if Mark is "just making it up as he goes", why not just make up Jesus being from a Davidic line as Matt and Luke are being accused of doing? Especially considering, as we both agree, that Paul years earlier affirmed Jesus being from David.
Mark 12:35-37 is not about Jesus not being from David, but about the Messiah being greater than David. By citing this, Jesus is showing he is more than a descendant of David, he's his Lord.
"Add to this, John 7:28 and 7:40–42
The gist is that John knows about the tradition of the Messiah coming from Bethlehem and from Davidic lineage, but he rejects it. In this chapter, Jesus admits that the crowd knows from whence he came, and no one in the crowd or among his supporters is depicted as believing that he does come from Bethlehem."
Their ignorance is not surprising, since Jesus lived in Galilee for all but the earliest years of his life. That John lets the wrong impression stand is only an example of his use of irony. They do not realize that he came from Bethlehem. Again, just because John(or other author) didn't mention it doesn't mean he didn't believe it. Arguments from silence are very tenuous. The early Christian record from in the NT and out is clear Jesus was seen as David's descendant.
Romans 9:5
Yes, Jesus is descended from the Jews. This however IS a historical/biographical statement about where Jesus came from....the Jews. For only a few sentences earlier, Paul speaks of himself in the exact same way in relation to the Jews. "His kinsmen according to the flesh." Again, this shows a Paul who believed in a real space-time Jesus.
Gal 1:20
No. We get the bio info we crave and you explain it away. Any attempt to see this verse as referring to anything else than Jesus' brother/half-brother (depending on how one views the virginal conception) James is clearly ad-hoc. This goes for mythers (not you) who want to explain both it and 1 Cor 9:5 away as "non-bio" info. you are correct to note that both are explained in passing. The audience is expected to know who these people are already. High context societies rule! As with Cephas and John. Since they are distinguished from other believers in both passages, it cannot simply be short-hand for referring to other Christians.
1 Cor 11:23
"I don't know if you are aware of this, but the Greek word that has traditionally been translated as "betrayed" does not necessarily mean that at all. One need not look further than this very verse to illustrate my point"
Indeed! I did know this! However I'm glad you brought it up as well. The fact that Luke uses it there to speak of Judas only lends confidence to this being what Paul meant. Irregardless, even if it is merely "delivered up" it still speaks of a specific night with Jesus breaking bread and speaking what we know as the last supper. This is biographical.
Derek wrote:
"Even more that his church involved men in Jerusalem called apostles named Cephas, James (his brother), and John. These he calls Pillars. (Gal 1:11-2:10)"
You Say:
This speaks for the historicity of these three men, not of Jesus
Yes, but it also gives corroboration of these men and their place in the Gospel accounts. If Paul had said, "I went and met with Steve and Joe and Lou," then we'd have a problem. James alone solidifies the case for Jesus' historicity not just because of this, but also because he's discussed in Josephus.
As for Paul and the passion accounts, there is nothing but corroboration there.
"So . . . . of the points you brought up above . . . . you are batting approximately 15%.
(That's a far cry from your saying of my claims of Pauline silence regarding J's biography, "This is false." above)"
Maybe by what you accept to be biographical (wink), but all it takes is one account of bio info and your silence is dashed.
:)
"Derek wrote:
"1 Cor 11:23-26 shows a huge parallel with Luke 22:17-20 of the last supper.
"Why not a huge parallel with Mark or Matthew, though?
In other words, I'm implying that Luke, having seen 1 Corinthians somewhere (incidentally, the only Pauline epistle directly quoted by any early patristic writer—e.g Clement and Ignatius), could have been attempting to "correct" Mark's story, to make it more inline with Paul's letter. (obviously . . . i don't think the author of Luke was a disciple of Paul, nor do I think the author of Luke is the same person as the author of Acts—but that will have to await its own post :)"
First, your right. It would take a huge post to deal with the relationship b/w Luke-Acts. I do not know what reasons you have for rejecting the writer of Luke for the writer of Acts. In my estimation, there are scarcely a few things we can be a sure of in NT studies as the same author of Luke is that of Acts. (Again vast majority of scholars) But since you brought it up, a similar parallel phenomenon occurs in Acts as does in the Pauline epistles. Even if Acts was authored mid-second century, the only reason it could be so, would be to push Paul and the other early Christians into orthodoxy. And yet we see very little mention of the Jesus tradition of the synoptics and john in Acts. Especially if he was in the 2nd century (which he wasn’t) he surely had both the info and the reasons to do so, he did not. Does this mean he did not know of the Jesus tradition? I think not.
but back to the point. Why not a parallel to Mark and Matt? Because we have a parallel to Luke! Isn't that all we need? If we had one for Matt or Mark in other letters or here, would we still be trying to write it off as something that particular author saw in 1 Cor and tried to harmonize? the very fact that we have these many different wordings of the last supper can only show us that this historical tradition was strong in the early church, and that it wasn't just copied word for word from one source to another.
Regarding Paul on marriage, Seyoon Kim argues this is one assured link of Jesus to Paul, and I agree. As I said, Paul does not update Jesus teaching, simply phrases it in a way we don't see in the Gospels.
"....in which case you are essentially saying that his listeners did not know the gospel story. Otherwise, they surely would have corrected him. No?"
Actually no,( I don't have the energy to look back, I'm a massage therapist by trade while I'm in school and I had a long day. :) ) But I believe I said that Paul Might (sorry I don't know how to make the words bold) be introducing this teaching of Jesus here for the first time. Might. I’m sure there were details Paul didn't cover, or even knew about himself even after his meeting with the Apostles in Jerusalem.
Please note I do not claim Paul knew every single word of Jesus as outlined in the Gospels. That would be stupid. There were surely things he knew about, like the last supper and James as the Lord's Brother, but there were also surely some things he did not know.
1Cor 6
Actually it does show Paul used the same "groundwork" for his teaching as did Jesus. Not related to your argument? Yes. irrelevant to Paul knowing Jesus teaching? no.
I notice you overlooked (probably by accident) my comment on 1 Thess 2:17-19. And yes, I know there has been some scholarly support for an interpolation here, but I along with the majority of text critics see much more evidence for it being original than not. Therefore, we have Pauline testament to who killed Jesus. And a nice bit of corroboration with the Gospels about the killing of the prophets.
As for the early heretics, your right. They had lots of crazy, in some cases interesting and cool beliefs. Yet you'll notice one thing. Of those that believed Jesus to be a non-physical entity, physical entity or otherwise, no one disputed that he was seen on earth. he may have been a spirit but he, as you quote Basilides:
"…appeared on earth as a man, and he performed deeds of power. Hence he did not suffer. Rather a certain Simon of Cyrene was forced to bear his cross for him, and it was he who was ignorantly and erroneously crucified, being transformed by the other, so he was taken for Jesus; while Jesus, for his part, assumed the form of Simon and stood by, laughing at them."
My point was more related to Doherty and his reconstruction. Of the various beliefs about Jesus within the first three centuries of the Church (the Marcionites with detesting the idea of a Jesus with flesh to the Ebonites who believed him to be just a man and hated Paul) there is no record of anyone believing he lived and dies in some upper spirit world. A striking omission, and killer to Doherty’s theory, since the church did document the various heresies and battled them for many centuries. Some even up to now. However, it is not right historically to place these many second century, Greek influenced heresies alongside the much earlier and very Jewish-centered NT documents of the 1st century.
5- Epiphanus attests that there was a known tradition that Jesus was born around 100 BCE and was crucified under Alexander Jannaeus.
6- The Talmud also attests to this same tradition.
7- The Toledoth Yeshu also preserves this tradition.
All are far too late and polemic to tell us anything about 1st Century Christianity.
"Did you mean it when you said that "we might have to re-evaluate our understanding of the epistles," if we had these "barest hints"?"
No, I meant we must have some reason to believe that Paul's letters need to be placed alongside these belief patterns and evaluated. As I've shown, Paul believed Jesus to be a flesh and blood man. His accounts are closest in chronological and theological relationship too the Gospels and Acts (all from within the 1st century). These are what should be primarily played off of Paul’s letters.
"As far your concern that you may have offended me with your initial comment. It's all good, bro. No apologies are necessary.
Not only did you not offend me, but you have proven that your heart and mind are in the right place by merely taking the time to eloquently and calmly respond to my posts. I sincerely appreciate that and I also admire your honesty, which is the thing I value in people more than anything else."
Thanks! I was a little worried I'd come in here and get bashed. I have dealt with many Christ-Mythers who behave in similar fasion to the Christians you are not fond with. They read one christ-myth book (I see we share the annoyance with Archya S and Freke and gandy, but soemtimes Dohery too) and all they do is repeat the same worn out old arguments again and again like good little parrots. Ah well.
Regarding my original post:
"To this I will answer that you don't see evidence for the existence of such a cult because you refuse to accept that the Pauline corpus itself IS the main piece of evidence."
Not really, Paul’s letters are not consistent with the hypothesized beliefs of such a cult. And also we have no evidence outside the epistles to indicate such a cult either. To get around this, many have said that it rose up and died down quickly enough to not leave behind any sign in the historical record. Quite convenient I think. :) The point is, we have the orthodox documents and church there in light speed to evaluate the Pauline corpus off of. And the similarities far outweigh the differences. There are many more allusions that many scholars have seen in paul and there is not enough room, or time to cover them all.
one final thing (I must go to BED!!!!) I hinted at this in my original post, the need for such extensive biographical information (who, what, where, why, when) you and I crave in the 21st century is a product of the post-Gutenberg era. We live in a low context society with rapid information sharing. Paul and the other ancients, on the other hand lived in a high-context society. this is discussed in Malina and Rohrbaugh's Social-Science Commentary on John. Readers were required and expected to "fill in the gap" because their background knowledge was a given. Extended explanations were unnecessary. Thus asking who, what, where, why and when over and over again was completely alien to this culture. Again since Paul was already addressing Christians who he likely already told the most crucial points of the story to. Jesus’ birthplace, mother’s name, miracles etc…etc… It is worth quoting them here:
"The obvious problem this creates for reading the biblical writings today is that low-context readers in the United States frequently mistake the biblical writings for low-context documents. They erroneously assume that the author has provided all of the contextual information needed to understand it."
Simply because we as the "Mighty Western Society of 2008" feel free to find silence in places we judge not to be good places for silence, and then fill in what we think is going on, does not mean our ancient brothers and sisters thought the same. Paul wasn't writing thinking (Boy I hope I'm clear enough so that 2000 years from now skeptics might be able to know everything I believe)
As one final note, I want to thank you for this chance to flex my muscle against a non-rabid honest skeptic. As I said before, even if all I said was crap, I do not believe it is but, if it is I was glad to have a level on-target discussion with you. I will pop in from time to time to see what going on. I do not want to preach to you, but in my heart and mind I know Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah and the one and only Son of the living God. I know that with your inquisitive mind you will continue to pursue these ideas as will I. I will pray that maybe, someday, you might become convinced too.
Last for real, by the by, I still think Wells is better (sticks out tongue), and I know anything he decides is not relevant to his theory. A little like the old did Darwin recount on his deathbed? Who cares he may still have been right!! You don't have to publish this as i I will not have time to respond any further, but again thanks!
John 8:32
And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free
Much love in Jesus Christ
(so much for short) :.)
Speaker
Derek
Ps, I hope the format was clear enough. With quotations flying at you from all sides. I hate these stupid blog controls
Laughs . . .
ReplyDeleteI could go down your list again, but I will keep this very brief.
Perhaps in the future, it would be a good idea to divide such comments into smaller, bite-size, more easily digestable portions, each point maybe getting its own post/comment.
I won't comment on your latest except to say that I don't accept that which you present as biographical evidence.
But, even if I did, we still would have precious little, I think.
---------------------
There was a guy named Jesus.
He had a mother.
He had a brother named Yacob.
He taught something akin to the "philosophia perennis"(which is the ground of ALL religion, in my opinion, not just Paul's).
He got his ass hanged.
That's it.
----------------
Other than that, I'll say I don't care whatsoever what theological worldview anyone holds and I would never wish that someone adopt or discover (or otherwise acquire) any particular variation of one such system or theology or other. I think such wishing is invariably and inevitably presumptuous. All that matters to me is how people conduct themselves.
I am just as confident that "all is well with my soul" (as the old hymn goes) as you are that all is well with yours.
I lack nothing.
I know you are just trying to express good will, so I will accept it as such, but I think that's a bad habit that religious folk have.
I have always liked that psalm that says (though I could just as easily quote from the Buddha or some other wolrdview):
"Yay, though I walk through the valley . . . yadda yadda . . . I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me."
I may not know what this "Thou" is (and I honestly doubt it is a person—or three persons at that) but I do know that I will not fear.
As time passes, I am beginning to suspect that I might be a "heathen mystic."
Is there such a thing?
:P
peace be with you.
Ó
p.s. My scholastic training was in engineering, so I am a layman as well. Credentials—particularly in such subjective fields as NT shcolarship— don't matter to me at all; the soundness of an argument is all that matters. I would rather hang with a layman who is honest than an "expert" who is not. (I won't mention any names). ;)
I began studying this stuff in depth (independent of any institution) about fifteen years ago, so I doubt a "Damascus flash" is coming.
Interestingly, I came upon this bit in a post on James Crossley's blog just now.
ReplyDelete"Well, if we used [only] Paul we'd know little about HJ. Lived, died, said something about divorce and not too much more."
Even an expert (who happens to believe in the HJ) agrees with my assesment of the extent of biographical data of HJ in Paul.
:)
As I re-read speaker's comment, I think I'll probably address (bit by bit) some of the things he wrote about . . .
. . . such as the lateness of the Toledoth Yeshu and Talmud and Epiphanus . . .
my arguments was not that they are early, but that they preserve traditions that obviously go way back (Alexander Janneus can be dated with some degree of certainty). In other words . . . whether the tradition is true or not . . . it existed.
As did the traditions of King Abgar of Edessa. Nobody (well . . . Eusebius believed it, but no one today does) believes that Jesus exchanged letters with this king or that he posed for a portrait, but nobody can doubt that the tradition goes back to a very early period in the history of the church.
Dig?
gotta go to work now . . . .
Ó
my response continues . . .
ReplyDeleteJust a couple of points at a time:
"Quixie: "First . . . . While you are entitled to believe that Ephesians and Colossians are genuine Pauline articles, you are going against the vast consensus of current scholarship—not that consensus settles anything, I know—so such an assertion DOES reflect a theological bias."
Derek:Not unlike the vast consensus on Jesus' existence as a man in history, yes? :) "
Fair, enough. But I see a distinction between a consensus arrived at through continued rigorous debate and a presupposition that goes unchallenged for 1600 years. This being a relatively brand new concept to most, the fat lady won't sing on this for a while yet.
By contrast, the controversial provenance of the "authentic" pauline corpus is a subject that continues to keep scholars debating. Not until the mythicist hypotheses is taken seriously—it is usually mocked and dismissed out of hand— and undergoes similar deliberation in an academic setting can it rightly be compared to other "consensus," in my opinion (e.g. Markan priority, Johannine dependence on the synoptics, the probability of Q being a written source, etc).
And of course, I repeat that I realize that consensus does not settle anything anyway (the Mormon consensus regarding the fate of one of the "lost tribes" of Israel remains despite the overwhelming genetic/archeological/historical evidence going against it . . . is just one example)
I'd like to add and stress here that the argument from silence is but one of several lines of argumenent for the hypothesis. In fact, though it is the weakest one of the three major ones, it is usually posited first because it serves a good introduction to the subject.
In light of the fact that, in the end, the totality of biographical data regarding Jesus in Paul (if one even concedes that it is biographical data—I don't) is that "he lived, he had a brother, he said something about divorce, then he got killed," and that Josephus "maybe" mentioned him, I find the mockery that is resident in the few current "scholars" who even mention the theory to be unfair and misdirected.
And as I've said repeatedly here and elsewhere . . .
All vitriolic commentary reflects more about the speaker than about the subject of the invective, with rare exception.
gotta go to work for a bit . . .
more to follow
Ó
okay . . . . continuing with my ongoing response to speaker of the dead's long comment . . .
ReplyDeleteI've already addressed the nature of the biographical references to J so I won't retread old ground here. I will only add that, using your overly lenient criteria for what constitutes corroborating biographical data, I can conclude that Heracles was a real historical person; so was Merlin; so was St. Veronica.
Nuff said.
okay . . . moving along . . .
speaker for the dead:
"Just because two accounts give two sets of info, it's not right to play them against each other out-of-hand and then throw our hands up and say “they’re hopelessly contradictory!” Harmonization is a cornerstone of historical investigation, and Craig Blomberg has done a fantastic job of that for these particular problems."
Q:
I am not throwing my hands up and saying, "they're hopelessly contradictory"
(though I freely admit that I happen to think that they are—). That was not part of my argument at all, though.
My response:
Please engage me on what I actually say, not on what you think I'm saying, or what you have heard before and have a ready answer for.
What I said, if you recall, was that the ONLY thing that the two accounts agree on, that is, the only place that they overlap, is in naming Bethlehem as J's birthplace. I never mentioned any of the contradictions in the birth narratives or even used the word "contradiction" in that argument. This is another good example of the strawman fallacy that I previously mentioned.
Since you bring it up, though, lt me say that whereas you see Blomberg's harmonization as "a fantastic job," I see it as a prolix excersice in special pleading.
(btw . . . if you like Blomberg, here's the first in a cool video series of a lecture by him which I watched recently—of course I disagree with most of his positions, but I made it a habit some time ago to acquaint myself with all of the relevant scholarship on these matters—even terrible stuff like Craig's and Witherington's and Wright's— not just the liberal or skeptical takes on it :).
That strawman aside . . .
Yes, harmonization is a "cornerstone" of historical investigation, no doubt, but it is also the cornerstone of theological insistences on scriptural literalism, as so clearly illustrated by Matt 21:5, where the author is so intent to demonstrate the fulfilment of "prophecy" to the letter that he overlooks the fact that the Zechariah (9:9) reference is a case of poetic parallelism (e.g. daugthers of Zion/Jerusalem—ass/foal . . . etc), and so in his literalist zeal he has Jesus ride into Jerusalem on two different animals at the same time, apparently oblivious to both the scriptural misunderstanding and the logical inconsistency it entails.
But, since (as I have reminded you already) I made no reference to any contradiction in the birth narratives, I need not elaborate on this further.
You offer a simple analogue with George Washington, but this analogue ignores the contradictions (not just omissions—here I do refer to the contradictions, finally :) in the birth narratives. Moreover, for the analogue to work, you must also demonstrate that an author "chose to" omit something. Lacking this, your analogue is but a tenuous conjecture at best.
Continuing . . .
Just because Mark has no birth narrative and never mentions Bethlehem doesn't mean that he makes no reference to Jesus' place of origin (1:9, 1:14, 1:24, 6:1, 10:47, 14:67, and 16:6).
Far from "omitting" the information, the author of Mark clearly reflects that Jesus was "known" to have been a native of the Galilee in the oral tradition he inherited.
Now I will anticipate that one might respond by saying that though he is called the "Nazarene" (a term which indeed may have a few meanings throughout the texts, but in Mark it is undeniably a geographical epithet), that could mean that he was called that because he had lived there since childhood. This is simply special pleading again.
By way of illustration, Doménicos Theotokópoulos, while working for his Spanish patrons was not called "Doménicos the Toledan", he was called "El Greco."
Why? Because the former monicker would have been unnecessary (indeed it would have been redundant) had he been a native of this city.
Or how about Antipater "the Idumean"? He was given that tag only after his siege on Jerusalem.
There are many more examples of this.
Nuff said.
I continue.
You cite Mark 10:46–52 to demonstrate that the old blind man knew of Jesus' Davidic lineage. This is a little funny, as you conveniently leave verse 47 from your exegesis of this very same pericope, which explicitly has this same blind man refering to Jesus "of Nazareth."
You'll have to show that "son of David" here refers to J's stemming from Bethlehem.
Here it is a reference to messianism, not geography (v 47 makes that clear). As such, it is problematic on two counts:
1- As I've already stated in my original post, if Rom 1:4 and Phil 2:6-11 reflect (and they do) that Christians (very early on) believed that Jesus had become Messiah as of his resurrection, then all passages in the gospels (all written after Paul's genuine epistles) which refer to him in messianic terms must be judged spurious.
2- If Jesus was thought to have spoken the words in Mark 8:11–12 (the earliest gospel, so accepted by all but the stodgiest of partisan commentators) that "no sign shall be given to this generation," then, likewise, any later story which has Jesus supply these signs must be judged spurious as well.
Okay . . . i need a break for now . . . . I'll return to this a little later.
Let me say here, that I realize that my comments may go unread and unanswered. I undertake this task for my own benefit, for the sake of clarity, and because not responding to speaker's bullet points might be interpreted as a concession on my part, which is most certainly not the case.
It also offers me an opportunity to focus my thoughts further on these matters.
for now . . . .
Ó
ok . . . let's see . . . where did i leave off?
ReplyDeleteoh yes . . .
There are two places in your comment that reveal to me that you are far more credulous than I would have guessed based on your previous comments. The first is your readiness to accept that the conflicting birth narratives are consistent with each other and can be harmonized into one plausible story. This shows me that you are not immune to the tendency to compartmentalization and the tendency to suspend critical thinking which seems to be part and parcel of the apologetic enterprise, despite your willingness to engage in dialogues such as the one we've had.
Put bluntly, to claim that there are no contradictions in these two narratives (not to mention that they don't line up with the other two gospels either on J's origins) is to be in a state of denial of a magnitude that only religious (or political—in rare cases) piety could achieve.
The second bit of unwarranted credulity is far worse, because it is not as subjective a matter, as you will see. I am refering to your (though I realize that it is not really "yours" but is rather an inherited error) readiness to accept the gospel authors' polemical use of Psalm 110 as both accurate and normative.
speaker:
"Mark 12:35-37 is not about Jesus not being from David, but about the Messiah being greater than David. By citing this, Jesus is showing he is more than a descendant of David, he's his Lord."
Q:
With all due respect, that statement from you reveals to me your (and the evangelists') complete lack of understanding of that psalm. In fact, it was my exploration of this particular passage more than any other (with the possible exception of the Servant Song in Isaiah 52 through 53) that convinced me that the authors of these books (the gospels) were not as "Jewish" as we have been conditioned to accept. Though there are many, many places that seem to indicate their familiarity with the Jewish scripture, custom and liturgy of the time (Moses parallels, Elijah parallels, specific scriptural citations and prophecies, etc.), when one delves deeply into these passages, what one finds is that this familiarity is actually superficial and incomplete. I have written about this topic before and will address it more at length soon, but I don't want to digress from my focus right now, which is Psalm 110 (c.f. Mark 12:35–37 & Matt 22:41–46 & Luke 20:41–44) in the context of our discussion.
A little background information:
These verses, along with the Isaiah servany song I just mentioned, are seen as "the" slam-dunk passages by many missionary types to "prove" that the Hebrews scriptures "prophesize" the coming of Jesus in the future. After discussing them one day with an evangelist here in my town (whose name was, ironically enough, Mark), I was a bit taken aback and befuddled. For a moment, I thought he might have something there. If these passages really did refer to Jesus, then I could understand why so many people could believe that Hebrew prophecy predicted J's messianic role in history. Believe me, I don't just dismiss things out of hand. When confronted with such challenging passages, I resign myself to examine them more closely. The problem, though, was that while I have a rudimentary grounding in the Greek language and can usually work my way through NT texts (with the aid of my textbook and a handy Grammar), I am completely hopeless in the Hebrew language.
Question: What to do?
Answer: What I always do in such cases when I can't access the texts myself—consult a few experts. :)
So I scheduled a meeting (which turned into two—so engrossed was I) with a local Rabbi. These meetings turned out to be the most significant episode in my search for answers regarding the origins of Christianity so far. They have influenced my thought on these matters more than you can imagine.
The King James reads:
"The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool."
Pretty straight forward, right? Both instances of the word "Lord" are capitalized, highlighting the odd anomaly of David calling a future descendant "Lord," implying that "Christ," the son of David, is greater than David. This is pretty deep stuff, right?
When I spoke my concerns about this to the Rabbi, he smiled gently and brought forth from his shelf an interlinear Tanach (English/Hebrew), opened it, and said, "You don't know a lick of Hebrew, do you?"
"No, I don't; that's why I came."
"Let me show you something," he said, holding the book in front of me with one hand and pointing at the relevant passage with the other. "Here's the first occurence of the word "Lord." I looked and sure enough there was the familiar Tetragammaton which I had seen before and which I recognized as the traditional name for God: "Yhvh." I nodded my recognition. He then said, "now, here's the second instance of the word 'lord', " and he pointed again, only this time I had no idea what the word was. But it wasn't the same word at all. He told me that the word in this case was "L'adoni."
To make a long story short (we spoke for over an hour that day) he pointed out the difference between "Adonai" and "adoni."
Here's the gist:
"Adonai" denotes the God of Israel. It is attested about 450 times in the Tanach.
L’adoni, however, is never used in the Hebrew scriptures as a divine reference. It instead denotes a human superior. It basically serves a similar function as the english analogue "my lord" in the royal sense.
When I told him that I saw the difference but was still confused as to what the passage might mean in this case, he imparted to me the most important lesson regarding the study of the Hebrew scriptures that I have had. Simple lesson too, one that I will find useful for as long as I keep studying.
He taught me that when trying to determine the meaning of any passage, the question we must always ask and determine is . . . .
"Who is speaking here??"
I told him I don't really know who is speaking here . . . David . . . right?
He smiled once more and said, "no."
He went on to give me some background on the form and function of the Psalms as a genre:
David, though he was one of the most beloved kings of Israel, was denied the task of building the Temple (which he had always longed to do) because he had blood on his hands (even "just war" was enough to disqualify him for the task—such purity was required by God to build his house of worship). God however promised him that his son would be the one to build it. Undismayed and undaunted, though David wasn't to build the tample, he made all manner of preparation for the future building of the Temple (by Solomon): by gathering construction materials, composing liturgies and songs to be read by the levi'im (priests). The Psalms were thus composed to be sung from a platform long after the death of David by these levi'im to the people gathered below.
It all suddenly made sense to me.
Who was speaking here?
The levite priests:
"The Lord (God) said unto my lord (David), sit down at my right hand until I make thy enemies into thy footstool."
This was a moment of catharsis for me. This was not some strange convoluted veiled reference to a future messiah at all!
So, when I went back to re-read the evangelist passages with this citation, I suddenly realized a few things . . . first - that the use of this Psalm in the gospels is just so much polemical sleight-of-hand and . . . . and second - that the episode where J challenges the Pharisees with this enigma never actually happened as a historical event.
I can say this with a high degree of certainty for two reasons:
1- Jesus, reported to have been a highly devout Jew who was versed in the Hebrew language and sciptures, would have known better than to say such a thing.
2- Had he said such a thing, the Pharisees whom he said it to— fanatical in their study of the scriptures— would have immediately corrected him on the spot. Anyone with a perfunctory understanding oh Hebrew could have.
Yet, his mere citing of this Psalm makes them all speechless an astonished in this gospel telling.
o_Ó
I realized that any insistence that this Psalm is a reference to either a messiah generally, or to Jesus specifically, could only be based on theological needs and motives.
So . . . with all due respect, I reject your exegesis here completely (though, to be fair, I realize that it is not yours per çe but only inherited doctrinally) .
Anyway . . . that's enough for this installment . . .
peace
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Okay . . . I have a little free time to respond a little more to speaker . . .
ReplyDeletespeaker:
"I do not know what reasons you have for rejecting the writer of Luke for the writer of Acts. In my estimation, there are scarcely a few things we can be a sure of in NT studies as the same author of Luke is that of Acts. (Again vast majority of scholars)"
John Knox's "Marcion and the New Testament"
Joe Tyson's "Marcion and Luke-Acts"
Vol. 28 (issue #1) of Free Inquiry has an article by David Trobisch on this topic entitled "Who Published the New Testament" (unfortunately, it's no longer accessible online, but it can be ordered) I haven't read his "The First Edition of the New Testament" yet . . . but it's on my shortlist.
Also, I expect that the release of Stephen (Gunther) Huller's forthcoming book (an advance copy was cited to me recently by a scholar) on the subject will be very significant addition to the literature.
The vast majority of scholars have never even questioned whether Luke and Acts is by the same author (see previous comment regarding "consensus" mongering); they just repeat the old convention—which is based on little more than the dedication to Theophilus they have in common.
But I need to stress here, that what motivates me is not whether scholars accept something or not, but whether the argument served up is persuasive or not.
okay . . . . for now . . .
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quixie:
ReplyDeleteI first read about the misleading Christian translation of Psalms 110:1 in a book by Anthony Buzzard called "The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound." Obviously the title gives away the book, although it is interesting that Buzzard is not an athiest. He believes in the literal truth of the Bible and a unitary God.The book is a fascinating read that demolishes the Trinity doctrine.
Buzzard believes that Jesus as deity is nowhere in the scripture, which may be taking the argument too far -- certainly there are some passages that seem to read that way, although the full doctrine that Jesus was part of the godhead certainly post-dates any of the Bible books.
Hi Paulf:
ReplyDeleteI don't think he's taking the argument too far at all. He's right. The Hebrew scriptures have nothing (0.0%) to do with the character of Jesus as painted in the NT. He may be raised to the level of deity by the time Paul came around with his abstract synchretisms, but even then it is vague and a forced concept.
I realize that that is a disturbing thing to say to someone who believes such things. But such things are simply unsupported by an honest reading of the texts.
The Psalm 110 mistranslation is one of three or four things in the NT that prove to me that the authors were "Jewish" in only the most supeficial of ways (and may have even deliberately obsfucated the matter).
(like I argued a few posts back, if you recall)
Thanks for the reference. . . . and for reading my long posts.
:)
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I guess I wasn't clear. I agree that Jesus as deity is nowhere in the OT, but I think it is arguable to what degree Jesus as God was present in the New Testament.
ReplyDeleteBuzzard says the NT nowhere hints at Jesus as God, that any passage used that way is a misinterpretation.
I think he is right to a point -- certainly there was no developed view of the ridiculous godhead until long after the NT books were written, but there is a sense in some NT books that Jesus was more than a man.
Okay. I got that.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree more with you; there are places in the NT where such "divinic" attributions are at least implicit.
But though he may overstate his case, it's an interesting angle. It's good food for thought, as most of us take this divinity for granted sitting on our two-thousand-year-old perch.
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